Killers in Khaki

Pradeep SharmaPradeep Sharma 51Encounters 112Case against him Staging theencounter of former gangsterRam Narain Gupta alias LakhanBhaiyya in November 2006.Senior Inspector Sharma wasarrested in January 2010 and isnow in Thane jail. Earlier, he wasdismissed in 2008 for his allegedlinks with the underworld.Police say an internal probefound his record 'undesirable'.

Status of case Trial has begun in the Mumbai sessions court Fame on film Sanjay Dutt playshim in Ram Gopal Varma'supcoming Department.

Mumbai's encounter specialists were the city police's sword arm against the underworld. In just five years between 1999 and 2004, the police used dubious extra-judicial killings, passed off as "encounters", to silence the underworld with over 500 such killings. The policemen were lionised in gangster movies and feared by colleagues. Today, the encounter specialists are on the wrong side of the law. Some have been jailed, others are out on bail awaiting reinstatement.

Ravindranath Angre, 55, one of Mumbai Police's "encounter specialists", had an epiphany last year. The officer, who had gunned down 52 gangsters, was arrested for allegedly extorting money from a builder. Angre was sent into the anda cell, reserved for hardened criminals in the Thane Central Jail. His cellmate mock-saluted him. "Recognise me, saheb? Didn't you want to kill me in an encounter?" Angre froze. It was Sajid Chikna, a stocky gangster from the Amar Naik gang with more than a dozen murders on his rap sheet. The lanky officer nodded silently at the turn of fate. During his yearlong jail spell, Angre tried to ensure his cellmate did not stab him or smother him with a pillow. The charges against Angre were ironic. Mumbai Police's Crime Intelligence Units (CIU) were set up in 1999 with a carte blanche to eliminate Mumbai's gangsters and extortionists. The officers who handed out vigilante justice, Angre, Pradeep Sharma, Aslam Momin and Arun Borude were batchmates who had graduated from the Maharashtra Police Training Academy in 1983 (see box). Today, they are on the run.

Angre was cleared of charges and eventually released in May 2009. In January 2010, Senior Inspector Pradeep Sharma was arrested and sent to the Thane Central Jail for the 2006 staged encounter of a suspected gangster Ram Narain Gupta alias Lakhan Bhaiyya. The only witness to this murder, a builder named Anil Bheda, was found dead in a forest at Manor, Thane in 2011. His body was burnt to make identification difficult. The trial against Sharma has begun in the Mumbai sessions court. If the charges against him are proved, he could face a death sentence.

Lakhan Bhaiyya's lawyer brother Ram Prasad Gupta, 36, who has doggedly pursued the case against Sharma, alleges the policeman shot his brother at the DN Nagar police station and dumped his body at Nana Nani Park in Versova. The ballistic report says the single bullet lodged in Lakhan Bhaiyya's body came from Sharma's service revolver. The report has been produced in the sessions court. Gupta claims Sharma killed his brother over a land dispute.

Advocate Shrikant Shivade, who had earlier defended Sharma in the case, produced a transcript of a taped conversation between gangster Chhota Shakeel and his shooter in Mumbai. Shakeel ordered the shooter to eliminate Sharma because he was the main obstacle in the underworld's activities. Shivade will only say this: "There might be doubts on how genuine the encounters were but Mumbai's crime rate fell drastically because of the encounters." A senior Crime Branch official, however, accuses Sharma of being a hired gun for the underworld-a policeman who would kill gangsters for money. Earlier, Sharma killed members of the Dawood Ibrahim gang at the behest of don Chhota Rajan.

Sachin WazeSACHIN WAZE 40Encounters 63Case against him Custodial death of software engineer Khwaja Yunus in December 2002. Waze allegedly punched Yunus in the stomach and poured a bucket of cold water on him, which led to his death.

Status of caseWaze was arrested and suspended as assistant police inspector. Ten other encounter specialists were also arrested in the case but acquitted. Waze resigned from the force in 2007. The case against him continues. He campaigned for the Shiv Sena in the recent Mumbai civic polls.

Later, he began targeting Rajan's men at the instance of Dawood's aide Chhota Shakeel. "I don't doubt Sharma killed gangsters. The point is that he selected targets at the behest of gangsters and not at the directions of senior officers," the officer says. Sharma is not the first tainted policeman to cross the line. Inspector Aslam Momin was dismissed in 2005 after the Crime Branch revealed his taped conversations with Dawood's brother Iqbal Kaskar. In December 2010, Inspector Arun Borude walked into the path of an incoming train. The fugitive policeman had been dismissed from service and was on the run for the rape of a 15-year-old girl. "They were the guys who went out and tackled the gangsters while we shut the doors and sat in our homes," says filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma, who produced Ab Tak Chhappan, based on the life of a policeman trained for encounters. "They are now an embarrassment for Mumbai Police who don't know what to do with them," he says. The police have holstered their guns nationwide and Mumbai is no exception.

Last year was the first in over a decade where the city didn't see a single police encounter. Police aversion for encounters began after three senior officers of the Gujarat Police were jailed in 2007 for the 2004 killing of gangster Sohrabuddin Sheikh, an underworld operative. The encounter squads were born to deal with the peculiar dynamics of the underworld in the early 1990s. Dubai-based Dawood allegedly orchestrated 13 bomb blasts on March 13, 1993, to avenge the killings of Muslims in Mumbai riots two months earlier.

Aslam Momin ASLAM MOMIN 60Encounters 30Case against himSuspected links with the underworld. Police taped his conversations with Dawood Ibrahim'sbrother Iqbal Kaskar.Status of case Momin was dismissed as inspector in July 2005.

After the don fled to Karachi, his gang splintered along communal fault lines. Rajan moved to Bangkok to form a breakaway gang. Abu Salem, angry at Dawood handing the day-to-day running of his crime empire to Shakeel, declared independence. In the turf wars for an underworld empire worth an estimated Rs 50,000 crore, these gangs began targeting each other's financiers-businessmen, builders and film producers. By the mid-1990s, the underworld came overground and targeted civilians. Holding a lavish party or buying a Rs 30-lakh Mercedes was reason enough to expect an extortion call from the mafia. Shootouts in broad daylight were common.

The BJP-Shiv Sena government saw its credibility slipping as the 40,000-strong Mumbai Police watched helplessly. The then home minister Gopinath Munde gave the police a virtual carte blanche to eliminate the gangsters. In 1999, the police department recruited officers for their newlyformed CIU. Hard-nosed policemen with an extensive network of informants and a track record showing they were unafraid to pull the trigger were picked up. The CIUs eliminated gangsters in cold, extra-judicial killings. Select policemen were armed with sweeping powers, allowed to tap phones, given secret service funds to pay informants and rewarded with cash bounties ranging from Rs 1-15 lakh. Gangsters were abducted, detained and then shot in cold blood. Weapons were planted on their bodies.

Encounter spots were usually lonely road stretches. The script was as predictable as a Bollywood blockbuster: Gangster fires at the police who retaliate, the gangster dies. "It's a myth to think we were independent vigilantes," says one of the encounter specialists who didn't want to be named. "Our bosses were always in the loop. We told them everything. There was unbelievable pressure on us to eliminate gangsters.

The home minister yelled at the IPS officers, they in turn abused and taunted us, calling us eunuchs," he says. But it was not easy tracing gangsters. Angre spent three years tracking the elusive Suresh Manchekar, one of Mumbai's trio of resident dons-Arun Gawli and Ashwin Naik being the other two. Angre trailed Manchekar to distant Kolhapur before gunning him down on August 15, 2003. "It was my Independence Day gift to the nation," the officer recalls. Between 1999 and 2004, CIU almost wiped out the underworld. Officers like Daya Nayak, 45, and Sharma became household names, spawning a host of movies, the most notable being the Shimit Amindirected Ab Tak Chhappan.

Daya Nayak DAYA NAYAK 45Encounters 83Case against himA disproportionate assets case was filed against the Mumbai police sub-inspector. Nayak's home in Andheri was raided.He was suspended in 2006. No evidence was found against him and only Rs 6 lakh was declared as being disproportionate assets.

Status of case In February 2008, a court threw out the case against Nayak. In June 2011, he was cleared of charges by DGP Ajit Parasnis. He is nowawaiting reinstatement in service.

Who plays the roleNana Patekar in Ab Tak Chhappan. Rana Daggubati in Department.

The initial success was shortlived. Hubris had set in and the inevitable slide began. In December 2002, CIU men picked up Khwaja Yunus , a 27-yearold software engineer and a suspect in the December 2, 2002 bomb blast in a BEST bus at Ghatkopar that killed two persons. Yunus died after being tortured in police custody. Fingers were pointed at CIU officers. The police insisted that Yunus escaped when the jeep transporting him to Aurangabad in January 2003 overturned. In 2009, the state government admitted Yunus had died in custody. The police, however, continue to call Yunus an absconder. Eight policemen, including Senior Inspector Praful Bhosale, 52, Sachin Waze and Hemant Desai were arrested. While Bhosale and Desai were absolved, Waze and 13 police officers face trial in the case. Nayak, the most flamboyant of the encounter specialists was responsible for 83 encounters. He was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Branch in 2006 in a case of disproportionate assets. He was later suspended. In 2011 however, he was cleared of all charges by Maharashtra Police Chief Ajit Parasnis.

CIUs were hastily disbanded by the Mumbai Police in 2004. Former police commissioner D. Sivanandan blames the media for putting encounter policemen on a pedestal. "It was not an individual like Sharma who controlled crime, it was a collective effort of the Mumbai Police. All the encounter policemen say they feel used and discarded," he says. "We made the mistake of outshining the IPS officers we worked for.We grew too big for our boots," says one of the policemen. Psychiatrist Harish Shetty terms encounter policemen as attention seekers who crave the limelight far beyond their physical and mental constitution.

Ravindra AngreRAVINDRANATH ANGRE 55Encounters 52Case against him Shooting and intimidating a Thane-based builder, Mahesh Wagh. The builder had filed a complaint in 2008 alleging that Angre, assistantpolice inspector, was extorting money from him. Angre was suspended from the force.

Status of caseAngre was arrested in 2008 and spent 14 months in prison. He was released in May 2009 and the case against him dropped. Heis awaiting reinstatement.

"A human cannot rationalise killing in cold blood for very long. This is why these policemen become anxious, restless, paranoid and suspicious. There is little difference between such policemen and the criminals they hunt," he says. Not surprisingly, bitter rivalry has broken out among the policemen. The once inseparable Sharma and Nayak are now sworn enemies. Nayak, who revered Sharma for picking him out of obscurity, now blames Sharma for the corruption cases against him. Sharma, in turn, thinks Nayak betrayed him. The encounter policemen are now benched, but the lure of the khaki uniform is strong. Most are convinced their stint at the purgatory will soon be ended by that phone call to rejoin the force. Inspector Bhonsle was reinstated; so was Hemant Desai. Angre works as the executive president of Samarth Thane, an NGO. Nayak drops his children to school and spends his time working out at a gymnasium doing 100-pound barbell curls.

The encounter squads are returning, but only in Bollywood. Sanjay Gupta's under-production Shootout at Wadala is based on Mumbai Police's first encounter in 1982. Varma is putting finishing touches to Department where actors Sanjay Dutt and Rana Daggubati play characters loosely based on Sharma and Nayak. His Sadhu Agashe, a sequel to Ab Tak Chhappan, has the eponymous encounter cop Nana Patekar returning to the force. A Bollywood-style ending most of the encounter policemen currently yearn for.